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Movies and TV shows love to call women crazy - but are these women *actually* crazy, or just responding to having to live in a craazy world? To take a deeper look at this question, in this...
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00:00:00Hollywood is full of examples of the quote,
00:00:03crazy woman, an uncontrollable, dangerous woman
00:00:06who's often equal parts mesmerizing and terrifying.
00:00:10Though in recent years there have been more nuanced depictions
00:00:12of women with personality disorders on screen,
00:00:15mental illness is a difficult topic to portray accurately
00:00:18in stories written for entertainment.
00:00:20And just as the label crazy is itself pretty offensive,
00:00:23there remain many problematic or reductive versions of this trope.
00:00:27All you did was to destroy the dream of young women all over this country.
00:00:31What, you think their dream is to get blown up?
00:00:33Yeah, you got a really good shot at the insanity plane.
00:00:35But looking at how film and TV has portrayed the so-called crazy woman
00:00:39through the years can tell us a lot about what mainstream society
00:00:42sees as threatening and deviant, especially in females.
00:00:46You won't answer my calls, you change your number.
00:00:48I mean, I'm not going to be ignored, Dan.
00:00:51Comparing a number of iterations of this character,
00:00:54we can see some common patterns.
00:00:56She's haunted by something in her past.
00:00:58You're a loser, Cillian.
00:01:00Some people just don't change, do they?
00:01:02No, they don't.
00:01:05She's suffering from delusions.
00:01:07And her detachment from reality can make it hard for audiences
00:01:10to sympathize with her, especially because the screenplay
00:01:13frequently doesn't encourage us to understand her point of view.
00:01:16You are completely delusional.
00:01:19Gonna have the cops deal with your crazy ass.
00:01:22In fact, the crazy woman has long been villainized on screen.
00:01:26She's frequently portrayed as violent.
00:01:28And while her uninhibited behavior or unusual beauty can make her
00:01:32initially appealing to men,
00:01:33I liked having sex with him.
00:01:36He wasn't afraid of experimenting.
00:01:38Eventually, the narrative makes most characters regret
00:01:42getting mixed up with her.
00:01:43On closer inspection, this woman's issues are often caused by men,
00:01:47whether because someone hurt her, or because she's been more
00:01:50systematically oppressed by stifling gender roles.
00:01:53She's not crazy, so don't say she's crazy.
00:01:56This woman cooks, sews, makes the bed, washes the bathroom.
00:02:01What the hell is crazy about that?
00:02:02Fundamentally, this character is painted as a danger
00:02:05to the status quo and the family unit.
00:02:07I don't want to lose my family.
00:02:09Here's our take on Hollywood's idea of the crazy woman,
00:02:12the forms she takes, and how she's evolving in today's representations
00:02:16of mental illness.
00:02:17I'm crazy.
00:02:20I'm a crazy person.
00:02:21There is something really wrong with me.
00:02:29Broadly speaking, we can break down the crazy woman trope
00:02:32into three different types.
00:02:34One, the obsessive woman, whose extreme violent behavior
00:02:37often casts her as a villain.
00:02:40Two, the woman having a nervous breakdown,
00:02:42who gradually loses touch with reality over the course of the story.
00:02:46And three, the cool crazy girl, whose edgy nonconformism
00:02:50makes it seem appealing to be unhinged.
00:02:53Let's start with type one, the obsessive woman.
00:02:59You ever find yourself being completely smothered by somebody?
00:03:04The obsessive woman is often a male nightmare of female craziness.
00:03:07Don't leave me! Don't leave me!
00:03:11I love you!
00:03:12Part of the crazy woman's power on screen is her ability
00:03:15to upset the social equilibrium,
00:03:17and one of the ways she does this is by threatening the family unit.
00:03:20When your husband makes love to you, it's my face he sees.
00:03:25Perhaps the definitive example of the obsessive woman is
00:03:28Glenn Close's Alex Forrest from Fatal Attraction.
00:03:31Didn't you see Fatal Attraction?
00:03:32You wouldn't let me!
00:03:34Well, I saw it, and it scared the shit out of me.
00:03:36It scared the shit out of every man in America!
00:03:38Married protagonist Dan's no-strings affair with edgy colleague Alex
00:03:43No strings attached.
00:03:44turns out to be anything but.
00:03:46In fact, Alex is the original bunny boiler.
00:03:49He's gone!
00:03:52Costuming is used to cleverly signal Alex's insanity.
00:03:56As we become more aware of her mental state,
00:03:58her earlier, highly fashionable 80s clothing gives way to a shapeless,
00:04:02white, straight-jacket-like dress.
00:04:05When he meets Alex, Dan has the perfect life,
00:04:08a beautiful, doting wife, cute daughter, and successful career.
00:04:12How long have you been married?
00:04:15Nine years.
00:04:16I'm lucky.
00:04:19So what are you doing here?
00:04:20So why would a man like Dan risk everything for Alex?
00:04:25According to male psychology expert Dr. Herb Goldberg,
00:04:28achievement-oriented, aggressive, dominant,
00:04:31success-driven males have a very low tolerance for boredom and passivity.
00:04:35The crazy woman keeps them on their toes.
00:04:38And you're here with a strange girl, being a naughty boy.
00:04:40This partly explains viewers' enduring fascination with a woman like Alex.
00:04:45We like to watch her because we, or someone we know,
00:04:47would be attracted to her.
00:04:49But Fatal Attraction sends a clear warning to anyone
00:04:52who might be drawn to this dangerous woman,
00:04:55and in the process it issues a damaging and regressive condemnation
00:04:59of the single working female.
00:05:01Alex, the unattached, sexually emancipated career woman,
00:05:05challenges the traditional family structure through her very existence.
00:05:09I was running wiser that all the interesting guys are always married.
00:05:12Well, maybe that's why you find them interesting,
00:05:14the fact you can't have them.
00:05:15And it's significant that Alex's bitter end comes at the hands of another woman,
00:05:20Dan's wife, Beth, who destroys this unhinged challenger
00:05:24to restore her own perfect family life.
00:05:27If you ever come near my family again, I'll kill you, you understand?
00:05:31Moreover, in revealing Alex's carefully constructed,
00:05:34carefree persona to be false,
00:05:35the movie implies that the emancipated career woman
00:05:38who wants a different kind of life doesn't really exist.
00:05:42She's a mirage, lying in wait to trap a man.
00:05:45I won't allow you to treat me like some slut
00:05:47you can just bang a couple of times and throw in the garbage.
00:05:50The obsessive woman can also be fixated on another woman.
00:05:53This could be because she perceives another woman as a rival for the male gaze.
00:05:58Then I'll be perished in the land.
00:06:02Or it could be because she's lacking her own sense of identity.
00:06:06Look, I'm not a psychopath or anything.
00:06:09I just want to be her friend.
00:06:11Come on.
00:06:12Your password to your phone is my sister's birthday, for f*** sake.
00:06:15That's like single white female s***.
00:06:17In Single White Female, Jennifer Jason Leigh's Hetty
00:06:20essentially tries to become her roommate.
00:06:23Everything I've done, I've done for you.
00:06:24Don't you understand that?
00:06:26The people you hated, I hated.
00:06:28This person can also be devoted to an idea or powered by religious zeal.
00:06:32Ho ho!
00:06:33Like, would you run out to play?
00:06:35In Carrie, the protagonist's devoutly religious mother
00:06:38is so consumed with religious fear of sexuality
00:06:41that she psychologically tortures her daughter
00:06:44just for being a young woman going through puberty.
00:06:47I can see your dirty pillows.
00:06:50Everyone will.
00:06:53Breasts, Mama.
00:06:54They're called breasts.
00:06:56Misery's Annie Wilkes is the nightmare of the angry fan.
00:07:00I'm his number one fan.
00:07:02She takes her favorite author hostage and tortures him
00:07:04because she's mad that he's killed off her beloved character.
00:07:08I know you didn't mean it when you killed her,
00:07:10and now you'll make it right.
00:07:12The obsessive crazy woman is often portrayed as violent.
00:07:17Now don't be afraid.
00:07:18Even though, in reality, violent women are the exception to the rule.
00:07:23Perhaps because the violent, mentally ill woman is an anomaly in real life,
00:07:28she's particularly frightening in the collective imagination.
00:07:31As sociologist Belinda Morrissey states in her book,
00:07:34When Women Kill,
00:07:35the female killer is the embodiment of some of western heteropatriarchy's greatest fears.
00:07:41Yet it's striking that, traditionally, Hollywood has turned this woman,
00:07:44who's suffering from severe issues, into an outlet for filmmakers or audiences' misogyny,
00:07:50and little more than an unsympathetic, one-dimensional villain.
00:07:53It's so great to finally meet your mother.
00:07:55What do you mean finally?
00:07:57You just met me.
00:08:00Fatal Attraction actress Glenn Close said of Alex,
00:08:03and the public response to the character,
00:08:05quote,
00:08:06She's considered evil more than a person who needs help,
00:08:09which astounds me.
00:08:11In fact, test audiences disliked an original ending where Alex killed herself
00:08:15because they felt she wasn't sufficiently punished.
00:08:18Part of the problem is that, especially in a fast-moving feature film,
00:08:22it can be a challenge to get most audiences to relate to characters who are delusional.
00:08:27As author Orson Scott Card puts it in Elements of Fiction Writing,
00:08:31we are terrified of people who don't live in the same reality as we do.
00:08:35A key step toward making this character less one-note
00:08:38is privileging her perspective.
00:08:40In the 1847 classic novel Jane Eyre,
00:08:43Jane's love interest, Mr. Rochester,
00:08:46is revealed to have a crazed secret wife locked in his attic.
00:08:49But the 1966 follow-up Wide Sargasso Sea and its film adaptations later
00:08:54tried to get inside this character's point of view,
00:08:57completely changing how we might view that situation.
00:09:00Never make promises.
00:09:02Why?
00:09:03Then they'll never be broken.
00:09:05In Gone Girl, the violent woman gets a chance to tell her side of the story,
00:09:09and while Amy remains fearsome,
00:09:11we're hardly encouraged to sympathize with the husband she's torturing.
00:09:15And my lazy, lying, cheating, oblivious husband will go to prison for my murder.
00:09:21In recent years, more nuanced, sympathetic versions of the obsessive woman
00:09:25are finally becoming mainstream.
00:09:27Lorna, on Orange is the New Black, fixates on a man she barely knows,
00:09:31who clearly views her as a fatal attraction-esque nightmare.
00:09:35I don't know this woman, okay?
00:09:37We went on one date. One.
00:09:40She's a f***ing stalker.
00:09:41But the show acknowledges that Lorna is suffering from a debilitating medical condition,
00:09:47which the actress Yael Stone has called erotomania,
00:09:50the delusion that someone is in love with you despite all evidence.
00:09:54Lorna's inability to face painful realities and failure to get the help she needs,
00:09:58especially after she loses a child, the kind of event that anyone would struggle to accept
00:10:03That's the kind of pain that a lot of people never recover from.
00:10:07is treated as heartbreaking.
00:10:09I'm writing to my baby.
00:10:12The father's keeping him away from me.
00:10:14And when we first meet Suzanne, aka Crazy Eyes, on Orange is the New Black,
00:10:18she's initially feared as the violent, obsessive type,
00:10:21through the eyes of a middle-class white woman.
00:10:24Because you light a fire inside me.
00:10:30But that first impression is completely disproven,
00:10:33as the show devotes time to the way Suzanne has been let down
00:10:36by a system that's failed to treat her mental illness.
00:10:39Do I deserve to be here?
00:10:40You deserve to be in a facility that can help you with your cognitive difference.
00:10:45But I'm not. I'm here.
00:10:49As well as to her many gifts and special way of viewing the world.
00:10:53You're not dumb. You just got a special brain, like me.
00:10:56She's also a notable example,
00:10:58because onscreen explorations of mental illness
00:11:00so frequently overlook women of color.
00:11:09A second type of quote, crazy woman on screen,
00:11:12is the one who's in the midst of having a nervous breakdown.
00:11:15This story shows the character's journey into delusion,
00:11:18so we get more insight into why she's losing touch with reality.
00:11:22Crucially, this second category allows us to sympathize more with the character,
00:11:27in large part because her perspective is, in moments, comprehensible to us.
00:11:32Sometimes this type 2 narrative lets us participate in the character's mind state,
00:11:36making it hard for us to tell what's real and what's imagined.
00:11:42Other good examples of this narrative pay careful attention to the sources of the woman's distress.
00:11:48John Cassavetes' nuanced A Woman Under the Influence makes us feel greatly for Mabel,
00:11:53played by Cassavetes' wife, Gina Rollins.
00:11:56You ever think of me as, uh, as, uh, dopey or mean?
00:12:02No, you're smart, you're pretty, you're nervous too.
00:12:07As we closely observe her life as a neglected mother and housewife
00:12:11to an insensitive husband who's out of his depth and doesn't understand her needs,
00:12:15Rowland's performance subtly illustrates how her mental deterioration
00:12:19is a response to her claustrophobic situation.
00:12:22Tell me what you want me to be, how you want me to be.
00:12:25I can be that. I can be anything. You tell me, Nikki.
00:12:30A Woman Under the Influence also belongs to a powerful subtype of this genre,
00:12:35the woman driven mad by living in a man's world.
00:12:38One of the most classic examples of the woman losing her sanity due to male cruelty
00:12:43is Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
00:12:46I don't want realism, I want magic.
00:12:48Magic.
00:12:48Yes, yes, magic.
00:12:50Blanche's brother-in-law Stanley provokes her breakdown by sabotaging
00:12:54a potential engagement that could rescue her from dire financial straits,
00:12:58before eventually assaulting her himself.
00:13:00I'm nervous when a thing but imagination and lies and deceit and tricks.
00:13:05Hey, look at yourself. Hey, look at yourself here in a worn-out Mardi Gras outfit.
00:13:11Even Blanche's snobby affectations and vanity,
00:13:14Would you think it possible that I was once considered to be attractive?
00:13:18He looks okay.
00:13:20I was fishing for a compliment.
00:13:21are reflections of how her society's gender norms have messed with her mind,
00:13:25by conditioning her to be dependent on male attention,
00:13:28and forcing her to repress her true desires under a front of Southern Belle gentility.
00:13:33You want a shot?
00:13:34No, I rarely touch it.
00:13:36In 1965's Repulsion, a woman is unable to function
00:13:40because she's so intensely afraid of men.
00:13:43The aggressive male attention that follows her is indeed menacing.
00:13:49I just had to see you, that's all.
00:13:52And her paranoia is all the more understandable in light of the suggestion
00:13:55that she was abused as a child.
00:13:58In 2003's Monster, Charlize Theron's Oscar-winning turn as real-life serial killer
00:14:03Eileen Wuornis is gritty and terrifying.
00:14:06But it lets us understand why this sex worker is driven to murder her Johns,
00:14:11after the extreme abuse she's experienced at the hands of men.
00:14:14When no one could imagine the willpower it took to do what we do.
00:14:19In 1944's Gaslight, Ingrid Bergman's character is psychologically abused by a husband
00:14:24who strategically plots to convince her she's going mad.
00:14:28If I could only get inside that brain of yours and understand
00:14:32what makes you do these crazy, twisted things.
00:14:34Gregory, are you trying to tell me I'm insane?
00:14:38The film, which gave birth to the term gaslighting,
00:14:41exemplifies what film critic Emanuel Levy terms
00:14:44the don't-trust-your-husband genre.
00:14:471968's Rosemary's Baby is a later example where it might seem like the woman is going mad,
00:14:52This is no dream, this is really happening.
00:14:56But really, she's got pretty good reasons to be upset.
00:14:58Her husband has joined a bunch of satanic worshippers
00:15:01and has impregnated her with the Devil's Baby.
00:15:04Come with us quietly, Rosemary.
00:15:06Don't argue or make a scene.
00:15:08Because if we say anything more about witches or witchcraft,
00:15:11we'd better be forced to take you to a mental hospital.
00:15:13Most recently, The Invisible Man follows Elizabeth Moss,
00:15:17trying to prove she's not insane as her toxic husband continues to torture her,
00:15:21seemingly from beyond the grave.
00:15:24Someone is-is-is doing this to me.
00:15:28He's-he's doing this to me.
00:15:30You need some medication.
00:15:31Adrienne is dead.
00:15:33Another common factor in women having a nervous breakdown is aging.
00:15:37Sometimes the female midlife crisis story is merely a shallow condemnation
00:15:42of the villainous older woman,
00:15:43whose stereotypical female sin of vanity makes her evil.
00:15:47But more interesting versions explore why aging is such a catastrophe for females
00:15:52in a society that discards women of a certain age.
00:15:55In Sunset Boulevard,
00:15:56which portrays Norma's obsession with chasing youth as grotesque,
00:16:00Norma, you're a woman of 50.
00:16:02Now grow up.
00:16:03There's nothing tragic about being 50.
00:16:05Not unless you try to be 25.
00:16:07The script points out how she's a product of Hollywood culture.
00:16:11You know, a dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit.
00:16:17Frequently, the woman having a breakdown story leads to a larger commentary
00:16:22on what's truly crazy about her society.
00:16:25In Blue Jasmine, a modern update to Streetcar,
00:16:28Rich Jasmine's descent into insanity represents the delusions of the one percent,
00:16:33and the elite lifestyle they'll do anything to protect.
00:16:37You can wear the Dior dress that I bought in Paris.
00:16:42Yes, my black dress.
00:16:45Well, Hallowice used to surprise me with jewelry.
00:16:47In Ingrid Goes West, as the title character embarks on a quest to become
00:16:52real-life friends with an Instagram influencer,
00:16:55the story gets at the way that social media encourages us all to relate
00:16:59in false, unhealthy ways.
00:17:01We were never friends because everything about you is such a f***ing lie.
00:17:05You just are some weird freak that found me on Instagram.
00:17:09Everything about you is a f***ing lie, okay?
00:17:16She's crazier than him, and more fearless.
00:17:20The third type of, quote, crazy woman is romanticized
00:17:24for her devil-may-care attitude and uninhibited sexuality.
00:17:27Have you ever f***ed on cocaine, Nick?
00:17:29This character, who tends to be played by an extraordinarily attractive actress,
00:17:34comes across as cool because she doesn't care about what society thinks of her.
00:17:39I'm Tommy's crazy horror widow.
00:17:41Mine is a horror thing for the most part.
00:17:43Look at the modern interpretation of Harley Quinn.
00:17:46This beautiful, deranged woman has elements of Category 1's obsessiveness,
00:17:51and Category 2's pattern of being driven mad by men.
00:17:54She's like a bottomless pit of, like, issues.
00:17:58But with her dyed hair, unique style, and backup squad of hot,
00:18:02angry girls in Birds of Prey,
00:18:03Hair time?
00:18:04Yeah.
00:18:08She's portrayed as fun and aspirational.
00:18:11I mean, how do I be like you?
00:18:13Well, except for the crazy part.
00:18:16Number one, no one is like me.
00:18:19Glamorous, beautiful sociopath Lisa, Angelina Jolie's character in 1999's Girl Interrupted,
00:18:25draws both the viewer and protagonist Susanna to her.
00:18:29It's good to be home.
00:18:30And even after Lisa's dark, evil streak is fully spotlighted,
00:18:34I need an ambulance.
00:18:35Make it a hearse.
00:18:37She becomes vulnerable at the end, upset that Susanna has told her,
00:18:40No one cares if you die, Lisa.
00:18:44Because you're dead already.
00:18:47Her beauty, vulnerability, and breakability soften her,
00:18:50making her more attractive than challenging to audiences.
00:18:54I'm not really dead.
00:18:55Around the time when Jolie won an Oscar for this role,
00:18:58the actress also played up something of a cool, crazy girl persona in real life.
00:19:03Freedom is pretty to me, you know?
00:19:05So yeah, things that maybe are dangerous,
00:19:07they make you feel alive, make you feel, you know, free.
00:19:12This Type 3 character represents an appealing level of danger to the status quo.
00:19:16She refuses to play by the rules, but she's cute and playful enough
00:19:20that the sense of threat isn't truly terrifying.
00:19:23And while her story might emphasize the gravity of her mental issues at points,
00:19:27I'm just the crazy slut with a dead husband!
00:19:30More often than not, it tends to resolve by making her feel relatable.
00:19:36Even in a film like Basic Instinct,
00:19:38where Sharon Stone's femme fatale is clearly a murderous psychopath,
00:19:42the audience is encouraged to focus more on the beauty and sex appeal
00:19:46that make her more alluring than alarming.
00:19:49The cool, crazy girl underlines how central sexuality is to this trope overall.
00:19:54Despite her fearsome qualities,
00:19:56the unhinged female character is frequently very attractive to men,
00:20:01with some going so far as to claim that this woman is automatically better in bed.
00:20:06How come the deeply troubled women?
00:20:07Yes.
00:20:08You know, deeply, deeply troubled.
00:20:10Right.
00:20:10They're always the best in bed.
00:20:12In the past, the crazy woman type has frequently been linked to
00:20:15any sexual preferences that were labeled as deviant or other.
00:20:19The very label of crazy woman is not only offensive to people suffering
00:20:23from mental illness, but also has very gendered connotations.
00:20:27Even the word hysteria derives from the Greek for
00:20:31of the womb, and was historically thought to be a purely female condition.
00:20:35Who is it?
00:20:36An hysterical woman.
00:20:39Are you insane?
00:20:40I don't take calls from hysterical women.
00:20:42In an article called Men Really Need to Stop Calling Women Crazy,
00:20:46The Washington Post's Harris O'Malley writes,
00:20:48Crazy is such a convenient word for men,
00:20:51perpetuating our sense of superiority.
00:20:54When women are too emotional, we say they're being irrational,
00:20:57crazy, wrong.
00:20:59What are you, a crazy woman?
00:21:01In the aftermath of the Me Too and Time's Up movements,
00:21:04women's so-called craziness and their desires to challenge and change
00:21:08systems that harm them are finally being perceived differently.
00:21:12Each time the crazy woman appears on screen,
00:21:15she sends a flare-up,
00:21:16helping us to see that perhaps it's not these women who are crazy,
00:21:21but the society they live in.
00:21:23Girl Interrupted premiered 25 years ago,
00:21:25and provided us with a totally new kind of exploration
00:21:28of young women's struggle with mental health,
00:21:30in a world that is very intent on trying to constrain them,
00:21:34and the importance of the bonds they build with each other on their journey.
00:21:37Was I ever crazy?
00:21:40Maybe.
00:21:41Or maybe life is.
00:21:45Starring some of the biggest names of the era,
00:21:47like Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Brittany Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg,
00:21:51plus a young Elizabeth Moss before she hit it big with Mad Men,
00:21:54the movie has become a beloved classic.
00:21:57Especially because its story, in being of so many eras, manages to feel timeless.
00:22:02Girl Interrupted continues to resonate with audiences even a quarter of a century later.
00:22:07But what is it specifically that makes the film so impactful?
00:22:11Crazy isn't being broken.
00:22:14It's you or me.
00:22:16Amplified.
00:22:17The Girl Interrupted is set in the late 1960s,
00:22:20and follows the story of Susanna,
00:22:22an 18-year-old who finds herself checked into a psychiatric institution against her will,
00:22:27after she intentionally overdosed in the midst of a nervous breakdown.
00:22:31The story is based on the real-life Susanna Kaysen,
00:22:34who wrote the memoir, which the film is adapted from.
00:22:36The story is very of its era.
00:22:39Many of the struggles the young women face stem from the way women,
00:22:42especially young women,
00:22:43were subjugated in the 1950s and 60s,
00:22:46as the fight for equality began to shake things up and scare the status quo.
00:22:50But it also felt incredibly relevant to the time of its release as well.
00:22:54In 1999, women were reckoning with new issues surrounding personal freedom
00:22:58and their place in the world.
00:23:00The 1960s were, in a way, similar to the turn of the century,
00:23:11in that both eras felt like moments of immense change,
00:23:14in society, in the power structure,
00:23:17and in which society attempted to contain people who did not fit in,
00:23:21or were seen as a threat to the existing order.
00:23:24In each young woman in the ward, we can see how being an outsider of any kind can erase
00:23:29much of your identity to others.
00:23:31Their individual personhood sanded away,
00:23:33in favor of seeing them each as just part of a problem,
00:23:37or as solely a function of their mental illness.
00:23:39The stories that have come to define these girls are all essentially based around
00:23:43the most traumatic parts of their lives, or their mental illnesses as a whole.
00:23:47And we find many of these stories aren't even true.
00:23:50For example, everyone believes that Polly purposefully lit herself on fire during a breakdown,
00:23:56but it's later revealed that she was a victim of a house fire.
00:24:00But, as is often the case, the truth doesn't necessarily dictate what people choose to believe
00:24:05about each other, especially when it comes to people suffering from mental illness.
00:24:09Each young woman's struggle, in a way, represents an extreme version of things that
00:24:13so many young women have to contend with, and are judged harshly for.
00:24:18Swings in emotion, people thinking they lie about everything, self-harm, disordered eating,
00:24:23disobeying authority, social contrariness, and a generally pessimistic attitude are often
00:24:28absurd.
00:24:30Oh, that's me.
00:24:32That's everybody.
00:24:33In the 60s, the 90s, and even today, women pushing for more,
00:24:37a quality, fair treatment for their voices to be heard, or just being openly unhappy with the way
00:24:42they're treated by the world, has been framed by some as a sign that they are in some way defective.
00:24:47And as something that should be punished.
00:24:50I don't want to end up like my mother.
00:24:52Women today have more choices than that.
00:24:55No, they don't.
00:24:57And in these girls' stories, we can see how they're functionally
00:25:00presented with the same two narrow options we often feel trapped between in real life,
00:25:05either figuring out how to be, or at least pretend to be, quote unquote normal,
00:25:09or ending up ostracized forever.
00:25:12Have you ever confused a dream with life?
00:25:16Their freedom isn't necessarily based on actually getting better, but instead on just
00:25:20being able to sane the correct mindset, as we see with Daisy, who is released,
00:25:26even though none of her actual problems have been dealt with in any way that helps her,
00:25:30to disastrous results.
00:25:32The film has often been compared to 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,
00:25:37which is also set in the 1960s, and focuses on the issues of psychiatry and institutionalization,
00:25:43with a particular interest in laying bare how nebulous the line between crazy and
00:25:48non-crazy people truly is, and how the distinction is so often dependent on who is in charge of
00:25:54making the decision.
00:25:56What do you think you are, for Christ's sake? Crazy or something?
00:25:59I think you're not.
00:26:00You're no crazier than the average c**t.
00:26:02Fall out walking around on the streets, and that's it.
00:26:04While Girl Interrupted is focused on women, Cuckoo's Nest is from a very male point of view.
00:26:10The only main female character is the major antagonist.
00:26:13And while Jack Nicholson's Randall Murphy was incarcerated for harming a teen girl,
00:26:18in Girl Interrupted we get to see the stories through the eyes of a teen girl herself.
00:26:23As a result of all of these differences, though they may share rather similar basic concepts,
00:26:28both end up with very different tones, points of views, and messages.
00:26:31Whereas Cuckoo's Nest ends with Murphy totally losing control of himself and his mind after he's
00:26:36lobotomized, Girl Interrupted is about Susanna successfully regaining her control.
00:26:42McMurtie's story is more analogous to Lisa's, unable to escape the cycle.
00:26:47But Girl Interrupted does give Lisa her humanity,
00:26:50and at least the hope of regaining some control over her personhood.
00:26:55The young women at Claymore Psychiatric Hospital have found that,
00:26:58because of the way they behave, look, and experience the world,
00:27:01that they don't feel like they fit into society at large.
00:27:05And others around them see having them locked away because of their mental health issues
00:27:10as a way to essentially permanently banish them from the everyday world.
00:27:15You know, I know all about you, and I hope they put you away forever.
00:27:20But here in this community, their outsider status isn't weird at all.
00:27:24In fact, everyone has something going on that makes them stand out, and often a pariah.
00:27:29Though they have very different problems and experiences,
00:27:32being together in this place does give them a shared sense of belonging and understanding,
00:27:37allowing them to form a tight, if sometimes tenuous, bond.
00:27:41They were not perfect, but they were my friends.
00:27:46They certainly fight with one another, and even use each other's problems as weapons.
00:27:50But we also see how their shared sense of identity, in being crazy,
00:27:54has allowed them to find a place where they feel like they can belong.
00:27:58Though, as we see, this can have its own drawbacks, which we'll discuss in a moment.
00:28:02But in a world where they have constantly been told that they're not normal, or something is
00:28:06wrong with them, they can find comfort here in this place where that, in fact, is the norm.
00:28:12It also allows them to be there for each other in a way no one else, not even the doctors and nurses,
00:28:17can truly be.
00:28:19Suzanne even turns down running away with her boyfriend, who is trying to avoid getting drafted
00:28:23into Vietnam, because she doesn't want to leave the others.
00:28:27In this place where she finally doesn't feel like the only crazy person in the room behind.
00:28:32Them?
00:28:33They're eating grapes off of the wallpaper.
00:28:36They're insane.
00:28:38They are.
00:28:40I am.
00:28:40While their various mental health issues have hindered each girl's ability to control
00:28:44her own life to varying degrees, they've all also literally had their control taken away
00:28:49as they've been incarcerated in this psychiatric facility against their will.
00:28:54They've had to learn how to cope and survive in this new environment,
00:28:57living according to the rules of the nurses and doctors there,
00:29:00and not being allowed to make choices for themselves.
00:29:03They struggle with the fact that their ability to regain their freedom is
00:29:07seemingly based far more on their being willing to fit themselves
00:29:11into the accepted boxes and stereotypes for women of the time than anything else.
00:29:16And when they do step out of line, they're hit with intense,
00:29:19inhumane punishments like electroshock and isolation.
00:29:23Susanna felt listless and trapped in her life, and so attempted to end it because she couldn't
00:29:28figure out another way to cope during her breakdown, and felt like she didn't have any other options.
00:29:34But this led to her becoming trapped in the institution, where she feels like her options
00:29:38have been narrowed down yet again, and going in either direction feels nearly impossible.
00:29:43"...ambivalence suggests strong feelings. In opposition, you are torn between two opposing
00:29:52courses of action."
00:29:53Luisa illustrates how this loss of control can lead to one attempting to wrest back control
00:29:58in increasingly destructive ways. She rebels against everything and everyone she encounters.
00:30:04It at first comes across as genuine bravado, but we quickly realize that there's much more going on
00:30:09under the surface. Her pushing back so often and so intensely is her attempt to stake out claim
00:30:15over her own personhood in contrast to the others around her and the institution at large.
00:30:21While Susanna has only just arrived, Lisa has been in the hospital for years, since she was only 12
00:30:27years old. And so these are the kinds of coping mechanisms that she's had to come up with to survive
00:30:33both her life before and her time in the institution.
00:30:36She hits out at people that she sees as weaker than herself in an effort to prove to herself that
00:30:42she is strong and capable, so that she doesn't have to look inward and confront the truth about
00:30:47her own issues.
00:30:48What the fuck are you doing, Lisa?
00:30:51I'm playing the villain, baby. Just like you want.
00:30:53This is also likely a part of the cycle of abuse, with her doling out abuse very similar to what she
00:30:59likely suffered as a child. It can be easier to lash out at those closest to you when you feel like you
00:31:04can't actually hit back at the people or things that are really causing your pain. And Lisa continually
00:31:09has to keep up this aggressive, overconfident front, lest she have to truly confront the full
00:31:14extent of her issues, and the long road she has to overcoming them and really taking control of her
00:31:21life. The film deals with the idea of escape on multiple levels. Literal physical escape, escaping
00:31:27society, and escaping one's own mind. When they're taken out to get some ice cream, we see how this group of
00:31:32outsiders is treated by wider society. How they don't feel like they fit in in this kind of world.
00:31:38And then the group makes a break for it and takes an unauthorized field trip to visit Daisy at her new
00:31:43apartment. Here we see how this isn't really an escape for any of them. While they're all technically out of the
00:31:48institution, they haven't left their problems behind.
00:31:52As Susana eventually points out to Lisa, more than the hospital itself, she's trapped in a confine of her own making.
00:31:58Her abrasive, sometimes outright abusive behavior is a cover for her own fear and sadness that she
00:32:04doesn't want to deal with. A shell she's built up in the hopes that no one will notice how broken and
00:32:09alone she really feels.
00:32:10That's why you keep coming back. You're not free.
00:32:14This place.
00:32:15You need this place. You need it to feel alive.
00:32:19Their mistreatment by society has trapped them in what feels like an endless cycle.
00:32:23They're ostracized, they fight back in a way that's deemed unacceptable,
00:32:27they're confined allegedly for their own good, and the cycle repeats itself.
00:32:31But Susana realizes that she doesn't want to be stuck on this wheel forever if she can help it.
00:32:36Though it's not easy, she begins to cooperate with her treatment and comes to find that it does
00:32:40help her reframe things and open herself up to new options in her life.
00:32:45I've wasted a year of my life. Maybe the whole world is stupid.
00:32:51But I'd rather we'll see a good one.
00:32:52Even Lisa seems to find a new level of self-understanding.
00:32:56She's by no means cured, but she has opened herself up to seeing herself as more than just
00:33:01the worst parts of her, and accepting that she is a full person underneath who deserves a chance.
00:33:07I'm not really dead.
00:33:11I know.
00:33:12Valerie continually points out how important it is to not let yourself get stuck in,
00:33:16or pulled under, by expectations or limitations others put on you.
00:33:20If you're going to have any hope of building a safe, happy life for yourself,
00:33:24you have to find a way to keep moving forward, as impossible as that can sometimes feel.
00:33:29Do not drop anchor here.
00:33:32I understand.
00:33:33While everything isn't fixed in the end and wrapped up in a nice bow,
00:33:37the ending does still feel hopeful because of that forward momentum.
00:33:41By the 70s, most of them were not living lives.
00:33:46But there isn't a day my heart doesn't find.
00:33:49In the end, it's not about being cured and becoming not crazy,
00:33:53but instead learning to accept yourself for who you are,
00:33:56and figure out ways to cope with this wild and sometimes painful world.
00:34:00Because, as difficult as it can sometimes be to imagine,
00:34:04there is hope in the future.
00:34:06And it's important that we give ourselves the opportunity to get there.
00:34:10Maybe I was just crazy.
00:34:12Maybe it was the 60s.
00:34:14Or maybe I was just a girl.
00:34:17Interrupted.
00:34:18Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's Rebecca Bunch's story was about many things,
00:34:22but one of the most central was that idea from the title.
00:34:25The idea of being crazy.
00:34:26No, I'm not crazy.
00:34:28I'm not crazy.
00:34:29I'm not crazy.
00:34:30This is first just a more jokey part of her so-called
00:34:33crazy ex-girlfriend status,
00:34:35but over time she comes to confront and eventually adapt
00:34:38to deal with her very real mental health issues.
00:34:40For almost 30 years I've known something was wrong,
00:34:44but mom said weakness causes bloating,
00:34:45so I tried to be strong.
00:34:47Crazy, as a descriptor, has long been used to put down or discount people,
00:34:51especially women.
00:34:52And over the course of its run, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend worked to unpack this,
00:34:56to give agency and humanity back to Rachel in a way she never thought possible.
00:35:00So let's take a deeper look at how Rebecca reclaimed the idea of crazy,
00:35:04and found ways to use it to empower herself.
00:35:07This is all the weird and freaky and dumb and useless stuff
00:35:12that is my life and has led me to nothing.
00:35:16It's not nothing.
00:35:18The show begins with Rebecca doing a pretty over-the-top crazy ex-girlfriend move,
00:35:22literally moving across the country on a whim just to try to get back together
00:35:26with a guy she briefly dated at summer camp as a kid.
00:35:29The first season comically lays bare the Catch-22 women often find themselves in,
00:35:33the expectation that they should do anything for love,
00:35:36but also need to be really cool and chill and like totally not that worried about it.
00:35:41So you're saying that I moved here from New York and I left behind a job
00:35:43that would have paid me $545,000 a year.
00:35:46For a guy who's still skateboarding, I did not move here because of Josh,
00:35:49because that would be crazy and I am not crazy.
00:35:51What ended up making the show so interesting and relatable
00:35:54is that it wasn't interested in just presenting those kinds of rom-com tropes,
00:35:58but in really unpacking them and how they really affect people
00:36:02and their views of themselves.
00:36:03Through its blend of self-awareness and comedy,
00:36:05it's able to expose how unrealistic and often rather bizarre
00:36:09many of the romance tropes we're used to really are.
00:36:12What's a girl to do when she's back here again?
00:36:16After so much growth, she's still stuck between men.
00:36:20At first, the show's character seems straight out of a familiar story.
00:36:23There's the career woman looking for love, the witty best friend.
00:36:26I am your funny best friend with all the answers.
00:36:29Okay, I'm your Judy Greer, your Rosie O'Donnell, your—
00:36:32your Joan Cusack.
00:36:34The love interest, the stuck-up girlfriend standing in the way of true love,
00:36:38and the nice guy who might be a better match for our heroine.
00:36:41But the show makes each of these characters complex.
00:36:44They either don't live up to their assigned role,
00:36:46or reveal themselves to be a totally different character than we first thought.
00:36:50Oh, which one?
00:36:51Calendar, about me, FAQs, upcoming events, past events, or contact me.
00:36:56God, you're funny.
00:36:58What? Me?
00:36:59In the same way, we see the characters encounter predictable rom-com situations
00:37:03that even they realize are artificial.
00:37:05So when Rebecca and her handsome boss are trapped in an elevator together,
00:37:08it comes across as self-aware, not contrived.
00:37:11This is exactly what happens in rom-coms.
00:37:13Good-looking people who hate each other but secretly have the hots for each other,
00:37:17they are always getting stuck in snowy cabins,
00:37:19and bank vaults, and the trunk of a car.
00:37:22When Rebecca gets carried away by romantic fantasies,
00:37:25instead of playing into it like normal rom-com sidekicks,
00:37:28the other characters often actually express a much more realistic view of things.
00:37:32So the moment you're craving isn't anchored in real emotion.
00:37:35It's a script dictated to you by our society's patriarchal love narrative.
00:37:39While Crazy Ex-Girlfriend emphasizes the absurdity of these tropes,
00:37:43it also reminds us how much people buy into them.
00:37:46Today, I'm gonna declare my love to a prince,
00:37:49and it's gonna be oh so romantic.
00:37:51Rebecca's romantic fantasies started in childhood with princess stories.
00:37:55She grew up listening to the song One Indescribable Instant,
00:37:58which tells girls that love will solve all their problems.
00:38:01What are you kidding me?
00:38:04No, it's for real of all instant!
00:38:09Rebecca initially chooses Josh over her other love interest, Greg,
00:38:13because he says everything a fairytale prince would say.
00:38:16You look amazing, like a princess.
00:38:19The show works to analyze how gendered expectations can shape women's entire lives.
00:38:25Rebecca and her best friend Paula are still trying to fit their relationships
00:38:28into rom-com and fairytale narratives in adulthood.
00:38:31It's like, you're Kate Hudson, and Josh is this British actor
00:38:36that, like, no one's ever heard of, but it's super cute.
00:38:38I kind of saw it as a fairytale where I'm the spunky princess,
00:38:42Josh is the handsome prince who gets turned into a stone.
00:38:44But what they've been taught to desire is so outlandish that they feel underwhelmed by real life.
00:38:50They dance together at a ball, or they kiss in a tower,
00:38:53they sail on a magic carpet.
00:38:55I just want to look into Greg's eyes and, you know, have a moment!
00:39:00And we see these romantic ideals have even taken a toll on the men as well,
00:39:04from the obsessive Trent to serial monogamist Josh.
00:39:07It's normal to feel like this right before you get married, isn't it?
00:39:11Isn't it normal?
00:39:12The show initially pushes Rebecca's fixation on Josh so over the top that she's almost a caricature,
00:39:17but in doing so works to unpack the truth about how her actions are the result of the world she was raised in.
00:39:23You checked his Facebook 63 times today, and his Instagram 18 times.
00:39:28You love him, you moved here for him, and you won't admit it.
00:39:31The show's musical numbers find hilarious ways to dive into the very real problems
00:39:35that Rebecca is dealing with, including the sexist expectations that got her to where she is.
00:39:39This is how you get ready?
00:39:41This is horrifying, like a scary movie or something,
00:39:44like some nasty-ass patriarchal bullshit.
00:39:49The season 3 opening sequence confronts the idea that women are told to be obsessed
00:39:52with romance but not emotional or possessive, crazy in bed but nowhere else.
00:39:58You don't want to be crazy, and you don't want to be crazy.
00:40:03In a culture that is so romantically backwards,
00:40:06craziness and love seem to go hand in hand,
00:40:08and the show doesn't skirt around the very real problem of Rebecca's mental health.
00:40:12I don't have an illness, I have a personality disorder.
00:40:16It's not something I have, it's something I am.
00:40:19This is what I feared my whole life, I'm broken.
00:40:22She repeatedly chooses to pursue Josh instead of working on herself.
00:40:25This emphasizes that finding a man comes even before sanity,
00:40:29in a world where women are taught to prioritize romantic benchmarks
00:40:32over their feelings.
00:40:33Rebecca believes that a woman's wedding day is the happiest day of her life.
00:40:36This is what happy feels like.
00:40:38So she's determined to marry Josh, even though they aren't ready.
00:40:42In her mind, to get married is to achieve romantic normalcy.
00:40:45Josh will love me and then I'll never have problems again.
00:40:52The show works to assess the way that women are taught
00:40:55to seek approval from men and make themselves small
00:40:58so as to never make anyone around them uncomfortable,
00:41:00and how that can lead to a buildup of pressure and emotions
00:41:03that can then erupt in unexpected ways.
00:41:06Josh's ex-girlfriend Valencia is humanized when it's revealed
00:41:09that she's been channeling her ambition into Josh,
00:41:12not using it on herself.
00:41:13And while Rebecca is accomplished, smart and funny,
00:41:16she looks for validation in men who don't seem to deserve her.
00:41:19In season two, she begins to dive into the source of this behavior,
00:41:22her rocky relationship with her own father.
00:41:25Her father's behavior in the past has set a pattern for you,
00:41:28seeking the love of men who don't fully love you back,
00:41:31men who are taken or emotionally unavailable, like your father.
00:41:35The initial rejection by her father is what led her to try harder
00:41:38and harder to win his love.
00:41:39Rebecca blames her father leaving on herself,
00:41:42even though she was just a kid.
00:41:44To be honest, as a kid, I was probably really difficult.
00:41:46You know, I'm just, I'm a different person.
00:41:48So I really think this is the version of Rebecca Bunch
00:41:51she's going to stick around for.
00:41:52In this, the show explores the way that even young girls
00:41:55are taught to protect men's feelings,
00:41:56rather than express their own.
00:41:58And she, for a long time, links her father's abandonment to all men,
00:42:02constantly having to live with the fear
00:42:04that they'll all eventually leave her, just like her father did.
00:42:06He's not going anywhere, he's here for my wedding.
00:42:08You know, he's not gonna abandon me,
00:42:11just like you're not gonna abandon me.
00:42:13Rebecca's turning point on her journey of self-discovery
00:42:16comes when she begins to embrace the term crazy.
00:42:19I never want to see you again.
00:42:21I'm fine.
00:42:24You're crazy.
00:42:27A little bit.
00:42:28Before, she was afraid of and rejected what felt like a darkness lurking within her.
00:42:32She constantly lied to herself,
00:42:33to the point of not even being able to admit that she did uproot her entire life
00:42:37and moved to California just for Josh.
00:42:39Or really, the idea of Josh.
00:42:41To move forward in her life, she has to begin confronting reality,
00:42:44the reality of her life, her choices, and her inner self.
00:42:47And now that I know what I have, I hope I can get the help that I need.
00:42:53But the truth is, I don't know what the future holds.
00:42:57You know, for someone who's quote unquote crazy, you sound pretty sane.
00:43:04Stepping away from her laser focus on hunting down and capturing her rom-com idea of love
00:43:09eventually allowed her more space for introspection.
00:43:12Those songs that you imagine, when you come back,
00:43:15you've always figured something out, right?
00:43:18I mean, yeah, I guess I've processed something.
00:43:21She comes to understand and accept that her mental health issues
00:43:24aren't just quirky little things, but genuine parts of a mental health crisis
00:43:29that she can't ignore forever.
00:43:31She also has to come to terms with the fact that love won't fix any of it.
00:43:34These things are just a part of her,
00:43:36and to overcome them requires her to work on herself.
00:43:39And though it isn't easy, she is up for the challenge.
00:43:42So I'm here, and I'm ready to face it all.
00:43:45She finds ways to express these parts of herself in ways that make her feel truly seen,
00:43:50and allows her new avenues to connect with the people she cares about most.
00:43:54I came to this town to find love, and I did.
00:44:00I love every person in this room.
00:44:02In the end, she comes to realize that no label — crazy, perfect,
00:44:06obsessed, beautiful, whatever — should get to dictate her life.
00:44:10It's her story, and only she gets to decide how it unfolds.
00:44:14When I'm telling my own story,
00:44:18for the first time in my life, I am truly happy.
00:44:23The crazy ex-girlfriend is every guy's greatest fear.
00:44:26She comes out of nowhere, hellbent on stirring up drama
00:44:30and ruining her ex's chances at new happiness without her.
00:44:34The pop culture version of the crazy ex can be terrifying,
00:44:37irritating, or genuinely in crisis.
00:44:40But countless movies and shows present this emotionally distressed woman
00:44:43without context as to the circumstances that got her there,
00:44:47framing her merely as an unpredictable liability and a problem that has to be eliminated.
00:44:52The crazy ex-girlfriend is a specter, sometimes even a literal ghost,
00:44:57that also haunts women, perhaps even more intimately,
00:45:00as they strive not to be compared to her.
00:45:03I wonder what she's thinking about you,
00:45:06taking her husband and using her name.
00:45:10The age-old myth of the distraught ex-girlfriend who desperately pines for,
00:45:14or violently rampages against, her lost partner reflects the belief
00:45:18that women are more codependent than men in romantic relationships,
00:45:22even though research shows no link between gender and codependency.
00:45:26And in reality, men are far more likely to resort
00:45:29to aggressive behavior after a breakup,
00:45:31so why is it that women are painted as universally responding
00:45:35to uncoupling with quote-unquote insanity?
00:45:37You won't answer my calls, you change your number,
00:45:39I mean, I'm not going to be ignored, Dan!
00:45:42Here's our take on what the crazy ex-girlfriend represents,
00:45:45and why she doesn't really exist at all.
00:45:55In the ancient Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts,
00:45:58Medea, sorceress and scorned ex-wife, seeks revenge when Jason marries another woman,
00:46:04by murdering the children they had together.
00:46:06The name Medea, derived from the Greek word for plans,
00:46:09or cunning, establishes the long-standing idea
00:46:12that divorced wives plot to seek revenge at all costs.
00:46:16In the 19th century, the crazy ex again made frequent appearances
00:46:19as an unhinged villain with almost supernatural overtones.
00:46:23My wife, my own demon.
00:46:26In Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester keeps his unpredictable wife,
00:46:29Bertha, locked away in a secret room,
00:46:32a harsh measure the audience is led to believe is necessary
00:46:34because she is, in fact, crazy.
00:46:36Before Jane meets Bertha, she thinks a ghost lives in the house,
00:46:40and there's likewise a spectral nature to the crazy ex,
00:46:43who's the title character of Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel Rebecca.
00:46:47The deceased wife of the narrator's husband, Rebecca de Winter,
00:46:51at first seems like a beautiful ideal the new Mrs. de Winter can't live up to.
00:46:56You'll never replace her.
00:46:57You can't replace her.
00:46:59No, we can't love you, because you're not her.
00:47:02But it turns out that she was a demonic, heartless, unfaithful woman
00:47:06who still haunts and torments her ex-husband and his new wife,
00:47:10even from beyond the grave.
00:47:12There's something universal about the image of a past lover as a ghost
00:47:16that a new couple wishes would go away.
00:47:18But another source of the trope of the crazy ex-girlfriend or wife
00:47:21you can't be free of lies in that pesky,
00:47:24until death do us, part marriage vow.
00:47:26Throughout most of American history, married couples who sought divorce
00:47:29faced long, arduous processes, given that obtaining a divorce
00:47:33often meant proving adultery.
00:47:35You want a divorce? New York State, you need to prove adultery.
00:47:38I mean, prove it in a court of law. That's hard to do.
00:47:41To simply be an ex-wife could mean you were widely assumed
00:47:44to be unfaithful or immoral.
00:47:47Moreover, women have not tended to be granted equality on the grounds for divorce.
00:47:51The 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act passed in the UK Parliament
00:47:55allowed men to divorce their wives for one act of adultery,
00:47:58while women could only divorce husbands who were physically abusive,
00:48:02incestuous, or bestial, as well as unfaithful.
00:48:06Being at risk of losing everything in a divorce,
00:48:08as ex-wives often did, could of course make anyone a little crazy.
00:48:12And I'm not rich. Everything I had belongs to him.
00:48:15That's English law.
00:48:17The through-line between women who were branded as crazy exes in the past
00:48:21and the women who are branded them now is power.
00:48:24In the feminist prequel to Jane Eyre, 1966's Wide Sargasso Sea,
00:48:28author Jean Rhys imagines Bertha Mason's perspective,
00:48:32and shows us a woman who's been horribly mistreated and cheated on.
00:48:35Traitor! Farnicator!
00:48:38To a contemporary audience, it's the unchecked total control
00:48:41Mr. Rochester has over his wife that seems threatening.
00:48:45Helen Small, a professor of English language and literature,
00:48:48writes that during the 19th century,
00:48:50tales of women driven to insanity by the death or treachery of their lovers
00:48:54were deeply ingrained in the culture's conception of femininity.
00:48:58Looking back on all this, we can see how the myth of the vengeful,
00:49:01crazy ex-girlfriend was a self-perpetuating one.
00:49:04Draconian laws that favored the husband's rights and governed women's bodies,
00:49:09and deep-seated, inescapable, untrue stereotypes caused intense moments
00:49:14and expressions of female frustration,
00:49:16which in turn have been used to prove that females are unstable,
00:49:20and justify laws restricting them.
00:49:22So what forms does the crazy ex-girlfriend take in more recent
00:49:26and contemporary pop culture?
00:49:33The show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a nuanced and hilarious takedown
00:49:37of the way we so quickly jump to calling women crazy.
00:49:40She's the crazy ex-girlfriend.
00:49:42That's a sexist term.
00:49:43The first season shows Rebecca performing an extreme
00:49:46of stereotypical crazy ex-girlfriend behaviors,
00:49:48moving across the country to be near an ex she briefly dated
00:49:52in summer camp as a teen and trying to steal him from his new girlfriend,
00:49:56all while pretending she just wants casual friendship.
00:49:59But the show unpacks all the crazy ex-girlfriend tropes,
00:50:03like the lies, the instability, and the proverbial daddy issues,
00:50:07humanizing them through a vulnerable, likable, central character,
00:50:10and digging deeper into why an ultra-smart, highly-educated woman
00:50:15feels compelled to act this way.
00:50:16So you're saying that I moved here from New York,
00:50:18and I left behind a job that would have paid me $545,000 a year.
00:50:22For a guy who still skateboards, that would be crazy,
00:50:24and I am not crazy.
00:50:26Rebecca's deceptiveness comes from the expectation that to win over a guy,
00:50:30she must constantly project a likable, relaxed, cool-girl persona
00:50:35that's inherently inauthentic.
00:50:37It's not just in Rebecca's imagination that guys expect this.
00:50:40After she finally gets the magical night she's been dreaming of with Josh,
00:50:44she momentarily slips up and reveals just how badly she wanted to be with him.
00:50:48I moved here for you.
00:50:52What?
00:50:54The second I saw you on the street in New York, I knew.
00:50:57And her full-on expression of passion for him immediately puts him off
00:51:01and causes him to distance himself.
00:51:02In the next season, Rebecca realizes that her relentless drive
00:51:06to seek the approval of an emotionally unavailable guy like Josh
00:51:09stems from feeling abandoned by her father.
00:51:12So when Rebecca embraces being the vengeful, crazy, scorned woman
00:51:17at the end of season two,
00:51:18Josh Chan must be destroyed,
00:51:20the transformation has an empowering aspect.
00:51:23At least, she's no longer internalizing the blame
00:51:26for why men have mistreated her.
00:51:27All these men, they are the ones to blame.
00:51:31Still, Rebecca can't fully heal until she looks honestly
00:51:34at the deeper issues she needs to address.
00:51:36The word crazy in the title is a reference to the way we casually demean
00:51:40our exes by flippantly turning mental health issues into an insult.
00:51:44But this assumed stigma and rigid expectations for acceptable behavior
00:51:48from female partners exacerbate very real mental health issues.
00:51:52Rebecca battles severe depression and anxiety,
00:51:55is delusional and erratic,
00:51:56hallucinates when stressed,
00:51:58and is eventually diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
00:52:02This iteration of the ex-girlfriend undergoing a mental health crisis is
00:52:06nuanced and moving, highlighting that women we label as crazy
00:52:09may be acting out because they are hurting or traumatized.
00:52:13In the end, Rebecca resolves her issues by working on herself,
00:52:16turning her musical hallucinations into expressions of creativity in the world,
00:52:20and not centering a man in her life.
00:52:23When I'm telling my own story, for the first time in my life,
00:52:28I am truly happy.
00:52:29It's like I just met myself.
00:52:31However, this happy ending isn't always attainable
00:52:34for ex-girlfriends who are genuinely unwell.
00:52:36For Orange is the New Black's Lorna Morello,
00:52:39a guy she's only been on one date with,
00:52:41comes to represent all of her hopes, dreams,
00:52:44and delusions about romantic relationships.
00:52:46She left notes on my car, she threw trash on my lawn,
00:52:49she left voicemails yelling about how I wasn't helping enough with a dog.
00:52:54I don't even have a dog.
00:52:55Without Rebecca's income and status privileges,
00:52:58including access to good mental health treatment,
00:53:00Lorna's obsession lands her in jail,
00:53:02where her delusions just intensify.
00:53:04Clearly your time in prison has done nothing
00:53:06to bring you back into reality, you psycho.
00:53:09Morello is driven by loving an idea of love.
00:53:12I deserve to be with somebody who loves love!
00:53:14And the more that her life diverges, sometimes tragically,
00:53:17from her perfect dreams, the less she's able to accept reality.
00:53:21The mental health crisis ex-girlfriend shows how feeding women
00:53:24a traditional, restrictive idea of the successful relationship
00:53:28can be traumatizing, since life inevitably doesn't fit into that box.
00:53:33Her ex has moved on, but she's not even close to ready
00:53:36to see him with someone else.
00:53:37The jealous ex-girlfriend just wants to make her old boyfriend
00:53:40feel as terrible as she does, if only for a short time,
00:53:43and takes action in the form of mostly harmless pranks.
00:53:47But when stories align us with this character's perspective,
00:53:50her behaviors, however petty or childish,
00:53:52become almost universally relatable.
00:53:54Throughout Friends, Rachel seeks to destroy any relationship
00:53:58her ex Ross becomes involved in, in one episode manipulating
00:54:01Ross' new girlfriend Bonnie into shaving her head
00:54:04because she knows Ross won't find it attractive.
00:54:06She said you gave her the razor.
00:54:08But of course, the narrative situates us on Rachel's side,
00:54:11and ultimately uses this as a catalyst for Rachel to admit
00:54:14she still has feelings for her ex.
00:54:16You're the one who ended it, remember?
00:54:18Yeah, because I was mad at you, not because I stopped loving you!
00:54:21Ultimately, the wild behavior of the insanely jealous ex
00:54:25reveals a person who is hurting.
00:54:27Unlike the relatively tame, jealous ex who a narrative more often
00:54:31aligns us with, women like Alex Forrest, Amy Dunn, Madison Bell,
00:54:35and Holly Viola are genuine psycho exes—
00:54:38devious, deceptive, reckless, and bloodthirsty.
00:54:42This cold, calculating but deeply delusional crazy ex-girlfriend
00:54:46is determined to either have the guy all to herself
00:54:49or ruin his life if she can't.
00:54:51To fake a convincing murder, you have to have discipline.
00:54:54She often lures the unwitting man with the promise of strings-free sex,
00:54:59a cartoonishly heightened version of that faux-cool girl,
00:55:02whose casual act gives way to a deadly obsession
00:55:05with possessing the central guy, thus fueling the cliché
00:55:08that all women are secretly desperate for male commitment
00:55:11no matter what they say.
00:55:12In Fatal Attraction, after Dan Gallagher ends his affair with Alex Forrest,
00:55:16she calls him at work, stalks him, threatens him,
00:55:19boils his daughter's pet rabbit, abducts his daughter,
00:55:22and tries to murder Dan's wife.
00:55:24Gone Girl's Amy Dunn goes on an equally brutal
00:55:27but much more elaborate rampage after to punish her husband Nick's affair
00:55:31and his plan to divorce her by framing him for her murder,
00:55:34taking on a crazy ex-wife from beyond the grave vibe
00:55:38when he initially thinks she's dead.
00:55:40Amy's thorough dedication to details plays into the idea
00:55:43that crazy exes are master manipulators who play on
00:55:47their ex-lovers' weaknesses to hurt them post-breakup.
00:55:50Meticulously stage your crime scene with just enough mistakes
00:55:55to raise the specter of doubt.
00:55:57In stories like Fatal Attraction and Gone Girl, an affair,
00:56:00emotional callousness, and terrible behavior by the guy
00:56:04sparked the woman's fury, in light of which,
00:56:06Fatal Attraction's depiction of Alex as an unstoppable psychotic force
00:56:10was met with criticisms from feminist writers.
00:56:13But this character's just causes for rage are overshadowed
00:56:16by her extreme, violent overreactions, making her the gold standard
00:56:20archetype of the irrational, jealous, dangerous ex
00:56:24that both men and women are conditioned to condemn and avoid.
00:56:27I just want to be a part of your life.
00:56:29Oh, this is the way you do it, huh?
00:56:30Shut up at my apartment!
00:56:32Gone Girl examines this situation through Amy's perspective,
00:56:35and actually originated the modern discussion of the Cool Girl Act,
00:56:39specifically to explain why Amy goes off the deep end
00:56:42after her years of trying to embody her husband's fantasies
00:56:45just led to him trading her for a younger woman.
00:56:48And found himself a newer, younger, bouncier cool girl.
00:56:53It's in large part because of the persistence of stereotypes
00:56:56like the crazy ex-girlfriend that many women try to present themselves
00:56:59as her opposite, the Cool Girl, an exhausting performance
00:57:02that can lead them to tolerate mistreatment or repress legitimate anger
00:57:06during the relationship or as its ending.
00:57:09And ironically, this may make it harder to process the usual
00:57:12breakup feelings in a healthy way and lead to more dramatic,
00:57:16crazy outbursts of pent-up emotion.
00:57:18The crazy-in-a-fun-way ex, frequently seen in comedies,
00:57:21is super bad for her ex-man, but he can't stay away.
00:57:25Toxic yet intoxicating.
00:57:27Just need a second, it's changed.
00:57:30How's all that going?
00:57:32We broke up.
00:57:35Oh, we're back on.
00:57:37In Parks and Recreation, the only threat to Ron Swanson's
00:57:40stiff upper lip is his smart, sexy, and seductive ex-wife Tammy.
00:57:44And though she's not a crazy ex, Claire from 30 Rock only needs one hookup
00:57:49in a few hours to set the fiercely independent business mastermind
00:57:53Jack Donaghy on a rollercoaster she's driving.
00:57:56Maybe Claire's right.
00:57:56Maybe if we have a baby together, things will calm down.
00:57:59I can't help it.
00:58:00I'm under a lot of pressure, and Claire is my escape.
00:58:02She is like a drug.
00:58:03I crave her all the time, even though she's bad for me.
00:58:06The fun, crazy ex may appear like just a wacky stock character,
00:58:10but the way she strips males of their power goes back to the idea
00:58:14that women gain power and prestige through snapping up high-status men
00:58:18and blinding them with sex and mind games.
00:58:20Ted Lasso offers an update to this type in Jane,
00:58:23Coach Beard's constantly on-again-off-again girlfriend
00:58:26who sounds like that demanding, erratic, toxic presence.
00:58:30Oh shit, two missed calls from her?
00:58:32You're in bed!
00:58:33But once we actually get to see her with Coach Beard,
00:58:36is clearly the love of his life in a relationship
00:58:38that may be unconventional but works for them.
00:58:41All the crazy ex-girlfriend examples who are framed as one-dimensional tropes
00:58:46are actually being misunderstood by the audience.
00:58:49This intentional misrepresentation also extends to real life.
00:58:53Journalist Vicky Spratt wrote in Refinery29 that even Princess Diana
00:58:57was in media treatment of her time, a particularly notable example
00:59:01of the crazy ex-trope.
00:59:02She was regularly dismissed as bonkers for doing things like
00:59:06calling out the royal family or her ex-husband on national TV
00:59:10because he had an affair.
00:59:11Well, there were three of us in this marriage,
00:59:13so it was a bit crowded.
00:59:15To this day, this type of portrait can be used to discredit women
00:59:18in political and professional spheres.
00:59:20In fiction, this type of male power play is explored in works
00:59:23like The Girl on the Train, where the spoiler alert,
00:59:26plot twist of the movie is that the female protagonist had been
00:59:29gaslit by her husband into thinking she was a hopeless, violent alcoholic.
00:59:34You told me I got you fired, but I didn't.
00:59:36You were fired because you were f***ing everyone in the office!
00:59:41And all these examples illustrate how impressions are completely shaped
00:59:45by how writers, or real people, frame women in a certain light
00:59:49to make their responses to situations seem crazy.
00:59:52In Friends, Janice Lipman is Chandler's annoying, overbearing,
00:59:56and crazy ex, reviled by all of his friends.
00:59:58But in the earlier seasons, he uses her, toys with her,
01:00:02dumps her repeatedly, and generally just treats her horribly.
01:00:05One of these times, it's just gonna be your last chance with me!
01:00:09Even if the women handle a breakup really well,
01:00:12sexist ideas about female emotions still haunt how their behavior is interpreted.
01:00:17Barney, I just want you to know I have no hard feelings.
01:00:20It wasn't the best idea for us to get involved.
01:00:23I hope we can still be friends.
01:00:25She's gonna try to kill me.
01:00:26So can ex-girlfriends ever really win?
01:00:29And how are the emotions of male boyfriends and exes
01:00:31dealt with in film and TV?
01:00:38As much space as the crazy ex-girlfriend takes up in Hollywood scripts,
01:00:41and in the public consciousness, realistically,
01:00:43women are at far greater risk of being assaulted or harmed
01:00:46by a crazy ex-boyfriend.
01:00:48From Henry VIII's murdering two of his six wives,
01:00:51to countless headlines and true crime shows detailing
01:00:54the horrible deeds of vengeful men,
01:00:56the aggressive, unhinged ex-boyfriend is a very real phenomenon.
01:01:00For women in abusive relationships, deciding to become an ex
01:01:04is perhaps the greatest risk to their safety.
01:01:07Why doesn't she just leave?
01:01:08It's incredibly dangerous to leave an abuser.
01:01:11Because the final step in the domestic violence pattern is kill her.
01:01:15Both the crazy ex-girlfriend's and boyfriend's actions are guided
01:01:18by misplaced ideas about love and relationships that don't match reality.
01:01:23But the ex-boyfriend or husband's aggression represents a grave
01:01:26actual danger to the woman.
01:01:29The crazy ex-girlfriend is a manufactured or imagined threat,
01:01:33a trope based on sexist ideas of the female mental state,
01:01:36patriarchal marriage practices, and written into popular movies
01:01:39for the sake of drama by men who can't see past their own
01:01:43self-centered point of view.
01:01:44This may explain why feminist reimaginings of classic texts
01:01:48and the music of Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo
01:01:51resonate with so many women.
01:01:53Their songs don't shy away from the intense emotions women feel
01:01:56during breakups, but flip the familiar script by not giving the guy the last word,
01:02:01instead lending the emotional crazy ex-girlfriend a real voice,
01:02:05with nuance and without any shame about what she's felt.
01:02:08I like writing songs about douchebags who cheat on me.
01:02:12In past eras, a character like Morello would have been framed
01:02:15as just another fatal attraction copy, just as Christopher paints her.
01:02:19But today's stories are increasingly reflecting our interest
01:02:22in better understanding the complex mental health problems
01:02:25that underlie her destructive behavior.
01:02:27And recent female characters like Rebecca and Alexis
01:02:30from Schitt's Creek have shown us how a struggle with jealousy
01:02:33and negative thought patterns can be a catalyst for self-improvement.
01:02:37These more realistic depictions offer respect and understanding
01:02:40to the people on both sides of difficult relationship trials,
01:02:43and make it abundantly clear that the crazy ex-girlfriend
01:02:46has just been in our heads this whole time.
01:02:50That's the take!
01:02:50Click here to watch a video we think you'll love,
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